NYC homicide rate at all-time low

the NYPD says that New York City is on track for 457 homicides this year, the lowest number since they started keeping records in 1962. Killings are down 78 percent from 1990, when we had the highest murder rate in the country. Last year, we had the second-lowest big city rate, behind Honolulu.

The homicide rate generally goes up with the unemployment rate, which is currently at a sixteen-year high. Nobody seems to be sure why it isn't working out that way this time.

The murders we do have are disproportionately in poor neighborhoods (numbers in both East New York and Harlem are up this year).